Email Topic

Recipient Email Address(es):

Personal Message (Optional):

Of the anti-liberty traditions which are traditionally espoused by Republicans, which could we change?

The idea of "what a traditional Republican believes" is probably itself open to debate. I don't want to really focus on "yes, this is traditionally Republican!" "No it's not! No true Republican would ever ... etc". Name a thing or two or three that you personally consider to be a traditional republican position, that you also consider to be anti-liberty, and tell me what lines of argument you think they might listen to from a merry band of libertarians out to covert them.

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

You said: "It might be nice if the SC would automatically review and repeal some of the more stupid laws as soon as they're passed, but it doesn't work that way."

I understand how the system works, as you explained. The problem is that it works that way. This "system" is beyond redemption.

The president issues edicts called Executive Orders that as far as I can see are laws not passed by any legislature. The congress critters just want to get elected so they team up with the corporations for campaign contributions (aka bribes) and work with lobbyists (bag men) to keep passing laws that benefit the largest corporations placing all costs on the average person. The Supreme Court is deaf dumb and blind to what is going on and simply rubber stamps most things by stretching logic to where it becomes illogic. The two political parties are noting more than Mafia families that control their turf and won't accommodate any voice or action that might weaken their stranglehold on the process of putting the vilest trash in office.

I want to know where in this "system" we get a break. The answer is nowhere. The average real, living, breathing, working their butts off, American citizen is a slave with no actionable way to protest or force change. The nearing election provides a choice between a pair of walking haemorrhoids that will simply keep the "system" headed in basically the same direction its been in for at least since Eisenhower.

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Alvin, Some posters have a very narrow vision of what good government is.

They staunchly and bravely stand up and declare their independence from the voluntary act of voting, but note how they react after the vote is cast and they are forced to do the government's bidding. They do it.

My independent attitude caused me to leave the US many years ago. When I see a freight train heading for me that I have no possible way to control, good judgement says to get out of its way. I knew the economy was going to blow up and had an inkling after 911 that a police state was being ushered in. I haven't at all been surprised by developments in the last 10 years. It will continue to get worse no matter who is elected thanks to people like you who help keep the corruption going.

By sanctioning the process with your vote, you are responsible for what happens as you aided and abetted it. I sit on the sidelines waiting for the inevitable moment when it all hits the fan due to the vast majority of the population that can't get themselves to really and honestly look at what's going on and and say enough.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Sometimes one doesn't vote for the best, but for the least bad. That is not sanctioning anyone rather attempting to reduce the damage. The alternative is giving the vote to the unprincipled that seek despotism or revolution.

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Better question - what makes you think that the US isn't headed towards becoming the USSA?

With the Patriot Act, NDAA, the military training in US cities, people being hauled off to mental wards for no apparent reason, etc, etc, etc, what will it take for you to admit to yourself that the direction both parties are pushing towards is an absolute dictatorship?

Compare today with 50 years ago when the US actually stood for something positive. The trend is heading in the wrong direction.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

I think you must be joking. The Republicans are the intellectual (and, more importantly, political) descendants of the federalists and the whigs (e.g.: proponent's of Hamilton's schemes and Henry Clay's american system). They are centralists, statists, totalitarians, and economic fascists in original philosophy. In the late 1800's, the democrats lost the war of ideas among the people who matter, and adopted the same program as the republicans, only with a more populist bent. Certainly, the economic libertarians gravitated to the republicans after FDR, along with some good "conservative" thinkers like Russel Kirk. However, like the civil libertarians who gravitated to the democrats in the 20th century, they are both permanent minorities who are paid lip service during election time and otherwise ignored as the bipartisan establishment marches forward.

We find ourselves in the same position as the Germans pre-Hitler. Several alternatives, but none representing individual liberty.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

My definition is similar. A true republicans to me is a centrists, statists, believes in separation of church and state and small government. I would tender economic fascists to more of a fiscally responsible position and leave the economic fascists to the corporation where it belongs. A government should be reasonably priced, provide essential services to its pubic (very simplistic). The republican party has been hijacked by a potpourri of special interest groups and the centrist, common sense republicans are either gone or in a huge minority.

The use of economic policy and governmental rules (loop holes) to enforce a social agenda, the focus on the US as the world's policeman, the self serving nature of the politicians (more government, fat pensions, no campaign finance reform, etc.) and the undue influence of large donors dominates the party. (Same for democrats only in a different equally distasteful form)

I am not sure this is fixable as the system of checks and balances has been overcome. The special interest groups have taken over the central committees oand enforce their own agendas and the party be damned.

Reading the republican party platform offers a scary view into the problem. At first Mitt Romney seemed a fairly reasonable candidate but he had to craft his image to satisfy the social agenda enforcers in the party even to get nominated. Now there is no way i can vote for him, he has too much baggage. Obama is not a viable choice either so i am not voting for the presidential candidate this year. I will vote for federal, state and local candidates who I know better where I can.

I wish I had an answer on what to change. I would pick taking the money out of politics as the primary area of the problem with a focus on campaign finance reform. That is not going to happen any time soon. ORHow about a third party effort. Not sure we could get a reasonable candidate funded to compete.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

A Republican today wants the state to be ran by the church, because their pastor tells them such every day.

I too like ideas of balancing the budget, but Republicans just like Democrats have a very poor history of doing so. They love to spend and spend and spend on military industrial complex. It was only balanced in Clinton years, and that was a once in a lifetime moment.

And I'm just like you stuck in a position where I think Romney/Obama have too many favors to return.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

It's my belief that a traditional Republican should represent these three concepts:

Fiscal Responsibility (Spend only what government takes in in taxes).Limited Government as laid out in the US Constitution (in other words follow the Constitution).Free Enterprise (or at minimum a level playing field for all of business).

The situation is becoming so absurd that one feels it's necessary to explain in infinite detail every concept.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Bill, we might very well be heading in the wrong direction but I think your question "What makes you think you're not living in a "Cuba" now? " is rather silly and doesn't do your argument any good.

If you like comparisons then take note our citizens were better off in the last 50 years than they were in the preceding 50. Things have not been moving in the right direction, but standing on the sidelines at this time and watching Obama win means that the country will have a marked increase in the radical shift to the left and a much more difficult time trying to reverse itself if it ever can again.

Consider the fact that many of our present laws are being made by executive order. Slush funds in the vicinity of 6-8 Billion dollars of tax payer money are being directed for an Obama win, the justice department has acted in a prejudiced fashion with regard to voting rights, ObamaCare that amounts to 18% of our economy and many more things. Those that permit Obama to win are acting in a way that suggests approval of all these things that are antidemocratic.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

You appear to believe there's a real difference between the parties. I contend there isn't. They are both controlled by the major corporations bribes.

Show me where any president cancelled the previous executive orders.Show me where any congress has cancelled any significant existing program of onerous piece of legislation put in by a prior government.Show me where either party reigned in Federal spending.Show me where either party rolled back the Patriot Act.Show me where an administration got rid of "free speech zones" and respected what the Constitution says about speech.Show me where war was declared by Congress for the invasion of Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, etc, etc.The war on drugs is an abject failure yet it not only survives, but thrives from one administration to the next and has given the US the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world.Four years into this administration, and Guantanamo is still open despite the promises made by Barry. Do you seriously believe the war party will close it if money pants wins?

From one administration to the next there's a continuum of policy regardless of who sits in the oval office. The "government" wins every election.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

The differences between Bush, Clinton and Romney are not that great and one can understand your point of view with regard to those three.

However, the differences between all three above and Obama are very great, like night and day.

Let us take one major difference, Obamacare which passed and which Romney if he wins has to end as a federal program. That is about 18% of our economy and will rise in future years.

That alone is a big enough difference, but then again there is the suffering of the American people which you may care little about living outside the USA despite the fact that you have relatives here.

Instead of taking the taxpayers money and giving it to Brazil to drill for oil off shore while preventing Americans from doing the same Romney will permit oil to be discovered and delivered in the private sector here and offshore. Instead of having Canada suddenly looking for a new more reliable partner, China, for its oil he will in short order permit completion of the keystone pipeline.

Now you have been shown the most obvious except Romney believes in America and Obama doesn't. Voting in this election is not an illusion even though none of the choices are perfect. I will say what I told you more than once. In order for the country to change directions we have to change Congress for Congress passes the laws. You and people like you are fractionating the vote and killing any chance of change. If we find in the next election that Congress has changed it won't make much of a difference if Obama is still President, but it will lead to the reversal of major problems caused by our present President if Romney is President.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

It pains me to say this but I really a agree with you on the major premise. I think they are the same poor choice but just controlled by different interest group segments through the political corruption. Their goals are not aligned with a healthy, productive America but for their own gains. Do not have a solution.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Romney will not reverse Obamacare, except by converting it into some other Republican monstrosity equally as bad. The insurance and medical lobby will force that. The federal gov't has no business even considering medical intervention, just like they have no business being involved with marriage, social security, and every other entity that isn't written into the constitution. The problem is that the US devolved into a lousy democracy and is now descending predictably into chaos.

The "think tanks", NGO's, and assorted other groups are supported by lots of cash from the major corporations and they write our laws. Congress is a rubber stamp for whatever group can supply the most money and the most votes to put them back in office. Corporate money is a corrosive influence and is what runs the country.

Why do you think a guy like me even visits a site like wsj.com. I live overseas because I am a political refugee. I disagree almost 100% with what the current federal government stands for. The corporations screw the average American on one end and the shiftless and lazy that don't want to work or can't because they chose to not learn are doing it from the other end and they each have a political party that represents them. The oldsters want their social security and never ending medical coverage for free and as a voting block they prevent any serious dialog on reigning in spending. The average hard working middle class American has no representation.

I keep waiting for one governor to stand up and tell the feds to get out of his/her state. At some point, once the rioting starts and the US military is brought in to put a lid on it, the charade will end and I fear a totalitarian police state will rise, and what's worse, lots of ignorant Americans will cheer them on.

I came to the conclusion that the system can not be corrected as those in power will maintain it to the bitter end and will collapse the economy to further their goal of enslaving the population to accept minimum wage jobs to feed their families. For at least 30 years, it has been the goal of the government to keep moving jobs off shore due to the incentives written into law. Both parties are guilty. I care deeply about what I see as a major catastrophe in the making and wish I had the influence to stop it.

Obama wants to support every entitlement program and create a few new ones to accelerate the financial destruction of the nation. Romney wants to plow more money into ridiculous military intervention around the globe that does nothing but create more anti American sentiment while enriching the weapons industry. Neither one give a hoot about the middle class that pays either way.

There hasn't been a "grown up" in charge in decades. One con artist after the other. Vote, don't vote, it really doesn't matter any more because arithmetically there is no way out. What you see going on is two parties each with a different perspective on how the deck chairs on the Titanic should be rearranged. Being enthusiastic about either side is short sighted as the hole in the ship of state and the economy is there and too large to correct.

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

OK Bill I understand your position. There is no possibility for change and since you disagree 100% with what the federal government stands for along with what the opposition stands for you left the US and now live in the Peoples Republic of China as a "political refugee". Those two words are your words, not mine and though others might agree that you are a political refugee I think those words are laughable and even more laughable based upon where you presently live.

I don't think much more needs to be said. Americans are hurting and they need change. A Romney win won't be the complete change I desire, but I am satisfied with simply stopping the bleeding, ending Obamacare, drilling, supplying more jobs, etc. Obama is leading us down the road to socialism or maybe fascism or maybe communism. I don't know where he comes from but he did have a picture of Mao on one of his White House Christmas tree ornaments. I wonder if they had Obama's picture on theirs in Bejing.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

The one anti-libertarian policy Republicans could be pushed to change is their support for criminalizing the use of recreational drugs. I believe that the following pragmatic reasons should convince most Republicans. The social conservatives must be defeated because of their ineradicable desire to meddle in other's lives.

1. All recreational drugs (heroin, morphine, opium, marijuana, etc.) should be freely available to consenting adults without a doctor's prescription. Taxes should be low enough to avoid the creation of new bootleg markets. A major new source of voluntarily paid tax revenue would be very welcome in these fiscally constrained times. Regulation should be similar to that for liquor (no sales to minors and no driving while stoned, etc.).

2. All involuntary drug treatment programs would cease, because drug taking would be legal. This would eliminate considerable unneeded social spending.

3.There could be a general amnesty for former drug crimes, which would eliminate overcrowding at every prison in the United States. There would be no recidivism problem for the released drug dealers, because there would be no high-priced market to make illegal drug dealing attractive.

4. The drug cartel wars in Mexico would rapidly cease. No one fights to the death to dominate a market which no longer exists.

5. Afghanistan is inherently one of the poorest nations on earth. No one wants it for anything except a source of opium poppies, sold at a high rate of profit. The guerrilla movements relying on drug money to finance their activities would decrease their activities when major pharmaceutical companies became the large opium poppy buyers in normal markets. Competitive newly grown opium poppies grown in India, Turkey and Iran would eliminate the near monopoly of Afghanistan and the Burmese Golden Triangle.

6. Police corruption to ignore illegal drug sales would cease.

7. Violent crime would decrease considerably, because it would no longer be appallingly expensive to support a drug habit.

8. Junkies would finally receive their final civil right, which is to commit suicide via inexpensive drugs of known purity.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

i have 2 things to say on this. In response to Rob I wanted to say that of course I do not like Obama care and recognize that we must do oil drilling and pipeline support until we can move to a more environmentally friendly sources of energy which could take years, but I did not want to get into the weeds. If we do I totally feel that the republicans have been also taken over by the military industrial complex and that if romney gets in we will immediately be in a war with iran using israel as the shill (the koch brothers are not supporting romney cause he is cute). As I state that both parties are owned by special interest groups.....democrats with unions and every entitlement group you can think of and republicans with right wing protestant, catholic and jewish religious zealots and the military industrial complex. Neither have the interests of a fiscally sound, healthy and innovative america.

To answer Paul, I totally, unconditionally agree here. Portugal has legalized all drugs, and there are latin america countries thinking of doing the same. I think the president of mexico asked us to do the same as he can not match the drug cartels. We spend $50 billion just to enforce marijuana. This to me is a form of a domestic industrial military complex infrastructure that has also bought off all of the politicians and will never allow this to happen. Additionally the right wing religious extremists on moral grounds block it.

What a big waste of money. we would financially be better off legalizing marijuana and getting tax revenue from the industry and if you want to be a heroin addict i would agree to pay for your habit. Just line up at the pharmacy at midnight and get your fix.

I just saw a program on prohibition and how ineffective enforcement was and thought of our current drug policy.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Cheryl, I understand your fears of war because I don't like US involvement either unless there is an existential threat to the US or a major interest that later would be an existential threat to the nation. I also think we should decline entry into a war unless we can clearly state the reasons to the American public, have a clear objective and an end game. I don't want to hear of nation building and the like.

However, we have seen Obama has done many of the same things Bush did. The major difference between Obama and Romney is Obama will project weakness that is more likely to lead to war than one than one that projects strength. I also see Obama using the military as a political weapon domestically.

The most important thing today is our economy. If that is not returned to strength then the military really doesn't count. Thus first steps first. End Obamacare, drill, jobs, reduce the size of projected deficit spending and reduce the overall size of government, stop the creation of the welfare state, etc.

A vote for Obama is agreement with what he is doing. Had this been a vote for Clinton or Bush then I could better understand your feelings. Along with a vote for Romney we have to target certain Congressional candidates of both parties to demonstrate that more of the same will not be tolerated. One cannot target everyone at the same time.

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

I remember you saying you have been living out of the country for about a half a dozen years and I thought it was Hong Kong, but you certainly would know better. So, what country in the Caribbean are you living in?

Are you taking up citizenship in that nation? Do you still hold American citizenship. If so why?

Send a Message

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

I actually agree with you on the economy being the major problem. AND I agree with you on the subtle war areas where obama has been very aggressive (Syria and some of the things you mentioned). So I think there is a draw on the war issue with Obama and Romney in terms of our discussion.

I am a serial entrepreneur retired now and very much appreciate his business acumen. He understands what a P & L is and although he would be ham strung by the Congress (which is ineffective on both sides) I think he would be a great economic leader.

But the infiltration of the republican party by extremists with social agendas (merging of church and state mostly ) and the fact that Romney will need to "pay back" by putting these people in leadership political positions and then into the government bureaucracy prevent me from voting for him.

Additionally, President Reagan and Bush talked a good game on small government but the facts tell a much different story.

However, I do not agree with the way Obama is running the country either. He is not totally to blame for all of our ills certainly but I do not see him stepping up to the real problems we face...simply deferring or dancing around the issues. A good politician but not a good leader.

I take my voting seriously and this is a big deal to me that I am just going to leave this position blank. i wish we had a viable third party candidate or at least a mechanisms in the system for the creation of one. But alas we are a two party system and neither party is "for or by the people".

I could not be in more agreement on the congress that is en masse taking us down the path of destruction. But that is a discussion for another day (or longer)

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Cheryl, you have just made my point better than I have. The problem is the economy. The American people are suffering because of the economy. Our military power depends upon the economy. It's the economy. That means deal with the economy because everything else is small potatoes and doesn't count until the economy gets going.

What is all this focus on social issues while the economy falls into the crapper? Nothing is going to significantly change. The left is using social issues as a weapon where the federal government should not even be involved. Let me hear your three major social items and how you or the country will negatively be impacted. I want to understand because I think your fears are similar to my own, but I see the social issues of the left as a divide and conquer issue based on enhancement of the welfare state only to be forgotten once the left is totally in control.

The left doesn't like the God issue and one can see how God was left out of their platform and then put back in. Many on the left believe the state is God and they wish to put as many people in government as they can to make the state function as the almighty whether you like it or not. For any freedom loving person this personal issue leaves Romney way out in front. Who wants their God to be the state?

All Presidents are hampered by reality. Bush had 9/11 and a Democratic Congress in his last two years. I did not find Bush to be much different from many of the social planners of the left. He and Bill Clinton, however, are worlds apart from Obama. Bush though a good man was not a good President and was NOT a fiscal conservative. However, compared to Obama Bush was a miser.

Reagan did quite well. Remember, he changed the world on his watch and he did make many changes for the better. Though he too spent too much he was moving philosophically in the right direction. In any battle the right starts with a great disadvantage. All those that feed off government will be against anyone touching their food. Thus the right is limited and can only fight for those that actually produce wealth for the nation. Thus it is an uphill fight to win a large majority of the nation when so many are already tied to government. It is hard to fight that type of battle and Reagan did well.

Obama has told us over and over again who he is. Did he immediately try to fix the economy? No. He pursued his leftist and statist ideology starting with Obamacare, carbon taxes and when he entered the economy he prevented drilling for oil while supporting his friends with massive amounts of money that went down the drain, i.e. Solyndra. He did not save GM, rather he forcefully placed the burden of losses onto the bond holders and the nation while he supported union salaries that were much higher than most of the industry. Now we see GM is becoming more of a Chinese company than an American company. These economic disasters without anything else is enough to throw him out. Socially I am like you and do not like religion in government but, in this case I would prefer the Pope to Obama.

Based upon what you say there must be more because you already have demonstrated your dislike for Obama. I await to hear these social issues that you feel are more destructive than a continuous dilution of the dollar and mismanagement of our economy and American tax dollars.

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

This election is likely the tipping point. We are at the point where democracy fails and that is why we were created as a Constitutional Republic. The Constitution is being torn up by those that use the Constitution as toilet paper. Four more years of Obama will complete what the left has been trying to do for over a century. Four more years of Obama will mean complete control of the left over the Supreme Court and thus the destruction of the Constitution ending the Constitutional Republic as we know it.

Your message has been sent.

Journal Community

Make a Connection

Journal Community

Your message has been sent.

What utter nonsense and disgusting ignorance. You are like a woman that cries rape that never happened and in the process hurt all women because everyone remembers your dirty attempt to soil anther's reputation.